Conspiracy Theory

Dear Editor,

How many ways are anti-Obama forces trying to wrest away the nation’s political top prize in 2012? Whether it is through the formation and backing of the Tea Party, filibustering bills, stripping unions of their check-off privileges and negotiation powers, questioning the president’s country of birth, calling the president a fascist and a socialist, using his middle name to make him out to be a Muslim, mocking his wife in her effort to eradicate juvenile obesity, drawing Hitler moustaches on his face and ‘Photoshopping’ him in a photograph of three monkeys, anti-Obama forces are using all the tricks in the vast right wing conspiracy arsenal to annihilate President Obama short of ending his life. Anti- Clinton forces tried the implementation of a host of dirty tricks trying to disgrace the then president and turn the public against him, their efforts paralyzing our government for the last two and a half years of his presidency. If you remember, the most vocal yelling for his head were found to be doing far worse than what Clinton did that led to his impeachment. Has this figurative multi-front assault on the president been successful in bringing down Obama’s polling numbers? To the consternation of right wingers, Obama still polls higher than any Republican prospective candidate in the 2012 election. What can they do to smite the incumbent they have not yet tried?

In their current efforts to show Obama’s lack of fiscal responsibility, Republicans support cutting funding of Medicare and Medicaid, overturning Obamacare, privatizing Social Security and eliminating funding for Pell Grants, Planned Parenthood and NPR, all of this for a $32 billion cut when the deficit is 1.5 trillion dollars and the national debt is 15 trillion dollars. Will these cuts result in their gaining the Whitehouse in 2012? Let us examine the cuts and what they mean:

Cutting Medicare sounds all well and good until an elderly person is bled dry spending on medicine falling into the donut hole. Cutting Medicare sounds bravado until a family loses their house and all of their savings fighting for the life of one of their own. Cutting Medicaid is just ducky until the same family that yells, “CUT” transfers all of grandma’s assets out of her name to qualify for ‘free’ nursing home care for her for life. Eliminating Obamacare sounds gutsy until somebody with a pre-diagnosed or terminal disease needs a health care policy. Defunding Pell Grants, government financial college assistance, is insincere in that it is in direct conflict with our efforts to compete with the best and brightest worldwide. Defunding Planned Parenthood is a blow to women who cannot afford to get mammograms, Pap smears, pregnancy exams and birth control.

Abortions account for but 3 percent of their budget but were “sold” to the public as accounting for 95 percent. Privatizing social security is a win, win for investment brokers and a lose, lose for retirees.

Can retirees finance their way through a down stock market that takes three years to recover? The question remains, why would Republicans make so much noise over $35 billion when the sum is but a drop of water in an ocean of debt?

The Theory Unfolds: It is well known that Republican gerrymandered Texas is not Obama country. It is also well known that the fabulously wealthy Texas Koch Brothers, whose father was on the board of directors of the John Birch Society, financed the Tea Party along with many Republican campaigns nationwide for the original purpose of squashing any bill that regulates carbon emissions preserving the profits of their oil companies. Having had their way with the prior administration, sponsoring their own presidential candidate, the oil industry can be assured of the return of massive drilling privileges and lack of air quality monitoring to increase oil profits. Creating an oil catastrophe on Obama’s watch finally has Americans blaming him for something, rising gasoline prices, that will hurt his poll numbers.

In speaking to friends who are severely financially hurt by increased heating oil and gasoline prices, they all blame the crisis on President Obama. They can not understand why he does not tap into our Strategic Petroleum Reserves, a short term solution to a long term problem. With this Congress and its immediate predecessor, whenever Democrats try to bring legislation to the floor to give incentives for alternate means of fuel, the bill never gets out of committee. Even though it may not own the presidency, big oil has big influence.

The image of former president Bush walking hand in hand with the Saudi crown prince Abdullah on the Crawford Texas ranch discussing oil prices is indelibly inked in my mental photo file. Then Veep Cheney, holding a members only meeting of top U.S. oil men with his energy task force, inputting their wish list with regard to drilling regulations (among other things) is another memory that cannot seem to fade.

Do you remember that Cheney’s meeting caused such a stir that the Senate convened a hearing on what transpired during his meeting and Alaskan Senator Stevens refused to swear the oil men in rendering that hearing impotent? Do you believe Oilstate Stevens and Haliburton Cheney truly wanted Americans to hear the truth about how tightly manipulated the oil industry is in open Senate hearings?

Are oil billionaires purposely jacking up oil cum gas prices to bring down the president?

To build on the conspiracy theory it is important to note that of the five richest oil reserve sites in the world, three out of the five belong to Iraq totaling 150 bbr (billion barrels reserves). Doesn’t this make one re-think our reason for starting a war (the first war our country has ever started) with Iraq when Saudis were behind the 9/11 attacks?

Remember Sadam hadn’t gassed his own people in ten years (1990). They had no weapons of mass destruction. Were we embarking on a quixotic world-wide campaign to remove the despots of this world starting with Iraq or did the Bush/Cheney oil folks have a more sinister plan?

If the conspiracy theory holds, influencing the manipulation of oil prices until Americans say “uncle” is an exercise gone out of control.

Speculators and futures dealers influence the price of oil; but, who influences them? We are slaves to oil until some alternative or co-existent fuel is where we hitch our energy star. Oil men know they have a strangle hold on the country and the world and plan to use their power as leverage to get everything they want. Will Republicans be the mighty mice of gas prices and come to save the day, or are gasoline prices a ruse to divert the current administration from the most critical problem in America, jobs?